Quite. And on top of that, it was uncontrollable burst aoe and could be absolutely lethal with the Bursting affix active. In fact a wipe was virtually guaranteed in the Arcway at the start.

Man yother classes got a completely cockeyed view of how strong affliction's AOE actually is because of a handful of outliers - notably the Arcway blobs, BRH with the bats on the stairs and a large trashpack in Nighthold. These could produce enormous explosions, since Soul Flame becomes exponentially more powerful the more mobs there are (since there are not only more to explode, there are more to hit on top), but aff's AOE on smaller trash was quite mediocre when you consider how much time it takes to get it out and running.

Can I just say how much I love Deathbolt? On the premade 110 an average Chaos bolt does about 4k without buffs or supremacy.

Deathbolt, on the other hand, does about 9k on a hit for me, 18k on a crit, and when I combo it with Darkglare now it's doing 36k on a crit. Nine times an average Chaos Bolt. Sure that only happens once every 3 minutes (less with the azerite trait to bring down the Darkglare cd) but it's still fun to see that massive nuke as affliction.

One thing that bugs the shit out of me though is that Haunt's cd is the same as its duration. They either need to extend the duration or lower the cd, cause right now it's moderately annoying

Can I just say how much I love Deathbolt? On the premade 110 an average Chaos bolt does about 4k without buffs or supremacy.

Deathbolt, on the other hand, does about 9k on a hit for me, 18k on a crit, and when I combo it with Darkglare now it's doing 36k on a crit. Nine times an average Chaos Bolt. Sure that only happens once every 3 minutes (less with the azerite trait to bring down the Darkglare cd) but it's still fun to see that massive nuke as affliction.

One thing that bugs the shit out of me though is that Haunt's cd is the same as its duration. They either need to extend the duration or lower the cd, cause right now it's moderately annoying

Some spells at 110 are pretty broken so don't pay too much attention to them.

Deathbolt takes so much set up though you will probably see the difference between those that do it right and not.

I kind of doubt there will be a weakaura telling you when to DB, it's not something that just happens, it's something you proactively set up.

For me, the best results were using AC Haunt and SC. Basically you time it so you can go Haunt -> UA -> UA -> UA -> Agony -> DB

And then when the Darkglare was up I would refresh Agony, then Haunt, then 3-4 UAs, pop DG then DB. The extra 8 seconds added to 4 UAs funneled immediately into a DB is insane damage. You have to plan that, it doesn't just happen

If you just use it on cd or without any set up, it's definitely wasted potential. Basically it's like the reap cycles on live, except these are actually predictable.

So there might be a WA that tells you when to start the cycle, but DB doesn't do shit without multiple UAs rolling on the target

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Originally Posted by SpikeySquad

Some spells at 110 are pretty broken so don't pay too much attention to them.

Deathbolt takes so much set up though you will probably see the difference between those that do it right and not.

I mean, it's not too much set up. Like I said, it's sort of like a reap/drain cycle on live. And you can definitely tell a difference between those who play around it and those who don't. As it should be, imo.

The firth thing they will do is nerf deathbolt into the ground when someone complains that an afflock was left unmolested to do a massive setup like that and killed their precious demon hunter in a RBG

The firth thing they will do is nerf deathbolt into the ground when someone complains that an afflock was left unmolested to do a massive setup like that and killed their precious demon hunter in a RBG

It's fa rmore efficient to use a voidwalker tank, which lets you pull a load of mobs, avoids you being pummeled and (mostly) CC'd with crap like stuns, and the VW does just as much damage as any other pet.

Ok so I just played a battleground on the PTR. Affliction is FAR too weak in both damage and healing. I could not kill anyone and I could not heal myself fast enough with drain life and siphon life simultaneously to really mitigate any of the damage. I am beyond upset. Affliction is my favorite spec and was the one thing that kept me playing the game. I really hope they buff the numbers.

I wouldn;t bet on any buffs, in fact, given the last few patches have been mostly nerfs the best you can hope for is that they will nerf all the other classes down and affliction is already where they want everyone to be.

I wouldn't play my lock in Bfa if the focus of my in game time were pvp. No more than I'd try to heal on him... Toolkit just isn't suited to the task relative to others. We can speculate about the why's but its just the way the game is going and the mental direction in blizzard. Sure it may get sorted by 8.2.5 but I'd rather pvp with something fun than the punching bag my partners or team have to focus their peels and CD's for. Its already unfun in non rated BG's since blizzard has spent many expansions training melee to target purple dots. Nobody should be able to go 1v3 but most BG's as a lock that is how you fight because everyone wants to kill you first. Even above healers most of the time since your average BG player isn't tactical but reactionary.

Affliction in PVE is okay, it can work, but is so uncompelling to play I can't see it being chosen compared to how improved destro and demo are. Really a 3 target spread pressure sustained fight is the only place I see aff being a clear winner. It doesn't aoe, its 2 target cleave is matched or beaten by destro, its cleave is beaten by demo, probably its single target too. I wouldn't bet on buffs. Unless they seriously tweak the pvp templates and skills in affliction's favor but again, bad mechanics people will only play if numbers push them...

I wouldn;t bet on any buffs, in fact, given the last few patches have been mostly nerfs the best you can hope for is that they will nerf all the other classes down and affliction is already where they want everyone to be.

Don;t hold your breath though.

Not sure what you're talking about, affliction is pretty great in Legion.

Not sure what you're talking about, affliction is pretty great in Legion.

I was replying to your post which was specifically about PVP. In PVP against melee, affliction is awful - as someone wittily put above, the devs have spent the entire expansion training everyone to go for the purple dot first. Which they do because afflocks can do a lot of spread damage if left alone (though not as much as shadow priests, who have more damage in two dots which are easier to maintain and require less setup and have less ramp than our four) but also because an afflock is basically a free kill to any melee you care to name.

We simply have no way to peel them, the shields and mitigation are a joke in the face of the burst damage every class can dish out in a few globals, we basically have to sit and take whatever punishment they dish out and the only strategy available is to use aff's massive selfhealing and hope that the rest of the team will come to our rescue - even this relies on gross levels of stupidity on the melee part, because any competent player realises that they can use one of their dozen stuns and kill us before we're out of it, or one of their dozen spell-locks which renders us totally helpless because everything is in the shadow school. There's no chance our dots which take a few percent off health every tick will kill them before their burst where they take off 20% of ours with one blow kills us. No one cares about the other dots they are so weak, particularly Agony which takes forever to reach full effect, no one cares about UA enough to dispell it, or about the penalty if they do, no one fears Fear because it breaks if someone farts the other side of the battleground. If you hurt a melee they just bubble/cloak/doublejump, heal to full health and sit right back on you.

Well, guess what: in BFA it is ten times worse because you preserve or actually make worse all of the weaknesses but you lost the self-healing on top. The damage is actually significantly lower and the only thing that does anything anyone will care about is deathbolt, anyone hurt by that deserves to be given the setup it takes.

PVP will just be an endless round of being a melee punching bag, the graveyard, or hiding behind a wall of team-mates spreading dots and praying no one notices you're there because if they do you're dead.

I can't see most players choosing it for PVE either. It's possible the low damage might get fixed - at the moment aff struggles to stay above tanks, particularly in any short fight where it carries amassive disadvantage.

It's ironic that the devs specifically poitned out ramp as a problem in Legion and even stated that "it takes so long for you to get your stuff out and running and up to speed that whatever you're trying to do is over before you got started" but did absolutely nothing to alleviate aff's ramp for BFA. The single target is bad, the AOE is bad, the cleave is worse than the other two specs but takes more work to accomplish, there's too much reliance on gimmicky stuff like the Darkglare which feels more situational than it should with a too long cooldown.

I can;t see aff being taken by all but a few diehards. The other two lock specs are just far more attractive, even if they get nerfed down damage wise.

I think people look at legion affliction healing in pve and assume it works the same in pvp; it doesn't. Drain soul heals for drastically less in pvp, and you are going to get kicked if you try to channel it anyway.

And in BFA, Drain Life heals for even less but also does practically no damage, healthstone base healing got nerfed and of course you will be without all of the artifact traits that increased healthstone value on top, Soul Leech and Phantom Singularity got nerfed as well. And Siphon Life is exclusive with Writhe or Absolute.

Plus, of course, Drain Life is just a huge "I'm low on health kill me!" arrow pointing right at you, since it's only use is to restore health, unlike Drain Soul it is not a damage ability